The chilling story of Samia Shahid ‘honour killing’ at ‘hands of dad and ex’

Before Samia Shahid travelled back to Pakistan to visit her supposedly dying father, one of the last things she apparently did was text a friend and ask her to pray that she made it home alive.

But one day before her return flight, the 28-year-old beautician from Bradford was found dead at her ex-husband Mohammed Shakeelin’s home in Jhelum, Pakistan.

A postmortem found she had been raped and murdered.

Now, the harrowing events leading up to what police suspect was an honour killing at the hands of her ex-husband and father Muhammad Shahid are set to be laid bare in BBC documentary Murdered For Love?

Told through the eyes of her closest friends and her second husband Syed Mukhtar Kazam, the programme follows the story of Samia’s life – from her arranged marriage to Shakeelin to her shocking death on July 20, 2016.

Before her fateful trip to Pakistan, she had been enjoying life in Dubai with her second husband, who she married in the UK in 2014 after secretly divorcing Shakeelin in a Sharia court in the UK.

But all that changed when her mother Imtiaz and sister Madiha allegedly called her, claiming her father was critically ill and imploring her to visit.

Kazam urged her not to go, fearing it was a trap, but despite her reservations Samia insisted.

Even so, she took the precaution of having a friend collect her at the airport and keep hold of her passport and plane tickets, a police report claimed.

She also sent a text to another, stating, “Pray I come bk alive on 21jul my psyco cuzzan u see.”

However, just one day before her flight back to Dubai, her ‘constant stream of messages’ to Kazam suddenly stopped, and she was found dead at her ex-husband’s home in Punjab, Pakistan on July 20, 2016, six days after arriving.

The family at first claimed she’d had a heart attack, but an autopsy revealed she had been raped and strangled. Kazam immediately claimed she had been murdered by her own family because they opposed their marriage, and six days later Shahid and Shakeel were arrested.

The BBC later reported that Shakeel had admitted killing her after she refused to leave Kazam and re-marry him. He was apparently annoyed about the divorce because it had scuppered his chances of moving to the UK and becoming a British citizen.

According to a police report, he ‘attacked and raped’ Samia in his home after she refused to tell him where her passport was.

And when she managed to run out into the hall, threating to tell the the British High Commission, her father gave Shakeel a ‘nod’ and he strangled her with her own scarf while her father held her legs.

Reports claimed the pair had hoped to get away with the alleged murder due to a local law which allows the guardians of murder victims to pardon their killers in exchange for compensation.

Shahid was eventually granted bail due to a lack of evidence, but died on January 28, 2018 from a heart attack caused by complications with a gastric band.

But before his death he maintained his innocence, claiming he found his daughter’s body after she had already died.

"I saw Samia lying dead with some froth forming at her mouth. She may have fallen downstairs or somebody gave her something," he said.

"I didn’t touch her body and called police. I asked them to perform autopsy. The police lifted up her body. I handed over all her belongings including her mobile phone."

Shakeelin awaits trial for her murder, while her mother and sister are still wanted for questioning.